There are many scale systems (or modes) for musical instruments. In most musical scale systems, the scale is divided into octaves. Each octave contains a number of separate notes spaced approximately evenly within the frequency range making up the octave.
An octave is a halving or doubling of frequency, based on the characteristics of the human ear. It is generally agreed that for each leap of one octave we seem to hear the same note again, of higher or lower pitch, but nevertheless merging perfectly with the original note spaced an octave away.
The conventional piano keyboard contains approximately seven octaves, with each octave containing twelve notes. There are eighty eight keys on the piano keyboard, comprising fifty two white keys and thirty six black keys. The frequency span of the eighty eight keys (notes) is from about thirty two hertz to about forty one hundred eighty six hertz, with each octave doubling the frequency span of the next lower octave. The spacing of the notes in the higher octaves is necessarily greater than the note spacing in the lower octaves, due to the fact that the higher octaves contain higher frequency ranges.
The present invention contemplates a musical scale and keyboard system, wherein the number of notes in each octave is increased from twelve to sixteen (in one case) or twenty (in a second case).
The primary object of my invention is the creation of new kinds of music sounds, which necessarily entail the concept of novel types of musical keyboards.
The present disclosure refers to two novel scales applying specifically to a new set of keys, e.g. on pianos, causing the creation of completely new sounds of music which, for example, may introduce "special effect sounds". Such sounds may lend themselves to, e.g. composing music for science fiction movies.
The new music sounds are produced on musical keyboards when one octave is divided into 16 or 20 equal parts, in contrast to the conventional keyboards where each octave is divided into only 12 equal parts. The hitherto known and used musical scales are not capable of producing the music sounds, as contemplated according to the present invention. These additionally created sounds producible on the new keyboards in conjunction with the musical instruments adapted thereto, result in an approximately eighty percent increase over known sound effects. In other words, the enlarged keyboards offer composers an opportunity to create, in combination, completely new musical sounds.
The new musical scale and keyboard systems reduce the note spacing in each octave, so as to improve the frequency consonance between notes played simultaneously on different musical instruments. The reduced note spacing also reduces the effect of slightly mistuned (or differently tuned) musical instruments that are played together.